Treatment of dough.



G. LUNT.

TREATMENT OF DOUGH.

APPLICATION FILED MAR. I3, 1913.

Patented J me 15, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l.

G. LUNT.

TREATMENT OF DOUGH.

APPLICATION FILED MAR- 13. 1913.

Patented June 15, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHIEET 2.

GEORGE LUN'I, FOIQMBY, NEAR LIVERPOOL, EN GLAND.

TREATMENT or DOUGH.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented June 15, 1915.

Application filed March 13, 1913. Serial No. 754,014.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, Gnonen LUNT, a subject of the King of Great Britain, residing in Formby, near Liverpool, in the county of Lancaster, in the Kingdom of England, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Treatment of Dough, of which the following is a specification.

The invention set forth in British Patent No. 24127 of 1907 provides a method and apparatus for treating dough by causing abundant quantities of oxygen, air or any suitable gas containing free oxygen to thoroughly permeate the doughvmass, so that the baked products thereof shall be whiter in color and of greater volume than those obtained from dough prepared by the method before known. That invention works perfectly, but I have found that if certain other gaseous media be substituted for a gas containing-free oxygen, an even whiter and superior color and finish of the dough is obtained.

so The present invention has for its object the treatment of dough by permeating the dough mass with the gaseous medium hereinafter mentioned, for the purpose of still further operation to give the dough a superior color and a decided increase in the size of the loaf.

To this end the gaseous medium which I prefer is peroxid of nitrogen, a very minute quantity of which is mixed with air, andcaused' to permeate the dough mass.

It has hitherto been proposed to treat flour with a gaseous medium of the kind referred to. Such proposals are confined exclusively to the treatment of flour, which was effected by agitating the flour continuously within a reel or chamber, and while under agitation subjecting the same to the action of the gaseous medium referred to. They were quite inapplicable to the treatment of a soft pasty mass, such as dough is.

According to the present invention therefore, I subject the dough to a thorough permeation by abundant uantities of the gaseous medium above re erred to, namely air mixed with a very minute quantity of nitrogen peroxid. This permeatiorfis preferably caused to take place at a'period subsequent to the formation of the dough in the mixer. and preferably after the lapse of a part of the period of fermentation, and by the term dough, I mean the pasty mass which is produced after all the ingredients have been brought together. The nitrogen peroxid may be obtained by any of the well known methods of production, electric or otherwise, and minute quantities mixed with abundant quantities of air are introduced into the dough by means of nozzles which penetrate into, and become immersed in, and more or less sealed by the dough, before the gaseous medium is delivered through them, so that the expansion of the gas is effective in thoroughly stretching and permeating the dough. The admission of the gas to the nozzles or the like may be controlled either mechanically by the position they reach after penetration of the' dough in sealing dough, or by the action of the nozzles, or by the contact of the dough with parts connected with the nozzles.

I now f-des'cribe one form of apparatus which I have found suitable for putting my inventioninto practice, but it will be understood that I do not limit myself to the form of apparatus described since the essence of my invention consists in the treatment of dough by permeating it with a gaseous medium as above described.

form-f of apparatus which I may em ploy is illustrated by way of example in the accompanying drawings in which there is represented in.

Figure 1 on the right-hand side, a known form of suitable apparatus in which according to the invention the chamber 22 leading to the pump is supplied by apipe 20. Fig. 2 shows an end view of this portion ofthe apparatus. Fig. 3 shows a detail of the air inlet nozzle of the arc chamber; described below. a

The aforesaid pipe 20 in Fig. 1 is connect ed with the pipe 14 through which is admitted the air which has been treated, so as to contain nitrogen peroxid. The ipe 20 has also a branch pipe 21 for the admission of air when desired.

I will not describe in detail the operation of the part of my apparatus in which the gaseous medium is-passed into the dough since this is known. I will only remark that the chamber 22 leads to apump through which gaseous medium is forced into vertically reciprocating nozzles 40 through which the air is introduced into the dough. The dough is placed in a trough 41 which is longitudinally reeiprocated in stages and a am in order valve 42 is provided to allow admission of the gaseous fluid to the nozzles when these are immersed in the dough.

16 is a pump, 17 a reservoir, and 18 a drain pipe. The air from the pump passes down the pipe 19 which is connected with a pressure gage 15, through the pipe 13 into the are chamber 12, which it leaves through the pipe 14 passing to the nozzles through the above mentioned pipe 20 and chamber 22. A pipe 25 is provided so that if desired the pump and reservoir may supply air to several arc chambers in parallel. Moreover if desired air may be supplied to the arc chamber 12 at several points through pipes similar to 19 and 13 provided with pressure gages similar to 15.- In this case it is desira-ble to arrange for a separate are at each point of admission. The air is admitted in such a manner as to flow upward through the to form nitrogen peroxid in known manner. The are is produced by means of a transformer 11 which is connected by wires 9 and 10 with a switch board 8 connected to an alternator.

Fig. 3 shows a detail of a known method of admitting air into the are chamber. 44

is a nozzle, 45 and 46 are electrodes between which the flaming arc passes and 47 is one of two mica plates placed slantingly on either side of the electrodes. .In this way abundant quantities of air, filtered by passing through cotton wool or other filtering medium and containing minute quantities of nitrogen peroxid are caused to permeate the dough.

If it is desired to dilute the mixture by air which has not been treated, filtered air maybe admitted through the branch pipe 21.

This apparatus may also be modified and simplified by omitting the pump on the part of the apparatus at the right hand side of the drawing, and consequently omitting the driving means therefor and supplying compressed air direct to the nozzles from an external source, such air having of course been treated so that it contains minute quantities a greater portion of the usual time of fermentation. If for example the period of time for mixing the dough and placing the latter in the oven be about four hours, the

process is advantageously applied to the dough one hour or more after the latter has been mixed, and I find the best results are obtained by applying-the process after about three hours from mixing.

I declare that what I claim'is:

1. The process for treating dough which comprises passing abundant quantities of air containing minute quantities of nitrogen peroxid through said dough so as to permeate it thoroughly.

- 2. The process for treating dough which comprises passing abundant quantities of air containing minute quantities of'nitrogen peroxid through said dough so as to permeate it thoroughly after the expiration of part of the usual time of fermentation.

3. The process for treating dough which comprises passing abundant quantities of air containing minute quantities of nitrogen peroxid through said dough so as to ermeate it thoroughly, after the expiration of 5} of the usual time of fermentation.

In witness whereof. I have hereunto 1913, in the presence of two'subscribing wittreat the dough by signed my name this 26th day of February 

